Blood On My Hands
by Those Who Dance in the Shadows
Summary: As a child laborer, Kuroko Tetsuya did his job well and without complaint, until the day the foreman killed his best friend. Now Tetsuya is forced to live on the run, and when a strange man offers him protection and training as his assistant, Tetsuya agrees. Inspired by The Saga of Larten Crepsley.


Disclaimer: Kuroko no Basuke does not belong to me. I'm merely a fan.

Certain events in this story are inspired by The Saga of Larten Crepsley *sobs*

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**Chapter One: The Beginning**

When Kuroko Tetsuya awoke and yawned one grey morning, he had no idea that by midday he would have become a killer.

He had managed to wake up earlier than usual that day, so he had a few minutes to snuggle into his bed of straw and enjoy the warmth and silence before the lady of the house yelled for him and the other children to get up.

The house he lived in was small and dirty. The room Tetsuya shared with the six other children was cold and cramped, but he never complained. He was lucky that the family had taken him in and not let him die when his parents abandoned him. Most of the children didn't accept the orphan, but he had found work at the age of six and brought home a fair amount of money, so there wasn't much they could do.

"Time to get up!" Tetsuya's foster mother yelled through the thin door that divided the children's room from the kitchen. There was a few groans as the kids slowly rolled out of their beds to either go use the bathroom or get dressed. Tetsuya regretfully sat up out of the warmth of the hay and stretched his arms above his head.

"Shigehiro-kun, are you awake?" he asked quietly, gently shaking the unmoving lump next to him.

"Yeah, yeah, I'm up," was the reply as Shigehiro slowly peeked out from under their shared covers. "It's sort of cold today, isn't it?"

"Yes, well, winter is approaching, after all," Tetsuya replied, pulling his clothes on as quickly as possible. Shigehiro was right - it _was_ cold. "It could also be the fact that the sun has never touched this part of the house ever, I'm pretty sure."

Shigehiro smiled. "I'd be surprised if it had." He had also started to get dressed, but stayed under the covers, which wasn't a bad idea.

"I'm going to go get us some breakfast now. Don't stay in bed for too long."

This was their morning routine. Before Tetsuya came to live there, Shigehiro always had a hard time getting anything to eat. He was the youngest so he was easily pushed away from the little amount of food they had to share by his older siblings. But ever since Tetsuya joined them, he never went hungry. Tetsuya somehow always managed to get them at least semi decent portions.

Just as Tetsuya was in charge of getting the two of them food, Shigehiro had his own duty. Protecting Tetsuya from the other children. It was obvious Shigehiro's siblings didn't like Tetsuya. They thought of him as just another mouth to feed and another body to take up space in the cramped house. Two or three years ago, Shigehiro wouldn't have put it past them to "lose" Tetsuya in the most dangerous part of the village, or maybe in the bottom of the pond a few miles east. It wasn't so bad now, though. They'd gotten used to him and tended to just ignore his almost non-exsistent presense.

Unlike his brothers and sisters, Shigehiro had felt connected to the orphan since the day his mother had brought in the small, dirty boy. They were roughly the same age, but you wouldn't be able to notice just by looking at them. Tetsuya was short and very thin. He was also incredibly pale, even his hair and eyes seemed almost void of color. Seeing the obvious disgust at the thought of an outsider staying with them on his siblings' faces, Shigehiro just knew that the boy wouldn't live to see the next year without someone to protect him. Maybe it was pity, but he'd offered to share his bed and gave him a good sized chunk of bread that he had been saving. Ever since, they had shared a bond unlike any he had ever had with his siblings.

Tetsuya easily slipped through the boys and girls in the kitchen, who were now fighting over the small amount of meat on the table, and grabbed two rather full bowls of porridge. He also managed to sneak a few slimey pieces of bacon from one girl's plate for Shigehiro, who was waiting for him out on the porch.

"Here is your breakfast." Tetsuya handed the fuller bowl over, along with the strips of meat. Shigehiro accepted them gratefully, digging in without hesitation. Tetsuya took small bites of his own porridge.

"I don't think I could live without you," Shigehiro stated after engulfing half of his meal. "I mean, bacon, how did you even manage to get that away from my siblings? Are you sure you don't want a piece?"

Tetsuya glanced at the greasy meat offered to him and politely declined. Shigehiro shugged and spooned a few more bites into his mouth, successfully getting some on his cheek, just as Tetsuya knew he would. He pointed the spot of food out to Shigehiro, who wiped it away with the corner of his shirt.

"See? Couldn't live without you," Shigehiro said again, putting an arm around the smaller boy's shoulders.

"Having food on your face is not fatal, Shigehiro-kun."

After they finished eating and set their bowls in the sink, they were off to work. They were lucky to both have jobs at the same place, an old silk factory, mostly doing boring, repetitive work. The machines could be dangerous if not used correctly, but it was fairly easy and paid well. The real problem was the foreman.

The foreman was a large, loud-mouthed drunk with a bad temper. He would sit and watch the children work, trying to find even the slightest error in what they were doing, just so he could yell at them, threaten them, and possibly beat them. There was one incident where a young girl had yawned for a half a second too long for his liking, so he violently slammed her into the side of the machine, cutting and breaking her arm. He did not let her tend to it until after work, but it was already infected and had to be amputated, which he did himself with great joy when he found out. He must have been charming as hell, though, because all the adults who knew him thought he was fantastic. The children knew better.

The two boys made their way down the dirt road towards the factory. Tetsuya felt Shigehiro shiver beside him. "He's going to be in a bad mood, I just know it," he stated. The foreman had grudge against Shigehiro for a reason neither boy could figure out.

"We'd better be on our best behaviour then," Tetsuya replied. He reached over and took Shigehiro's slightly trembling hand in his own, giving it a small squeeze. "It will be okay."

He sighed. "I know. I just have a bad feeling about today. I really don't want to go."

"Yes, but we would be in more trouble if we skipped." Tetsuya would have loved nothing more than to blow off work and spend the day at the lake with his best friend, laughing the day away and soaking up the sun's warmth. And if he knew just how accurate Shigehiro's feeling was, he would have kept holding onto his hand and gone and done just that. But Tetsuya could not see the future, so he gave Shigehiro's hand one last squeeze before letting go forever and heading into the building.

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The children worked in silence. Tetsuya paid extra attention to the job he was doing than he normally would, and he hoped Shigehiro was doing the same. The foreman was in a bad mood, just as Shigehiro guessed, and the thought of either one of them making a mistake now, with him breathing down their necks, made Tetsuya cringe. He knew the foreman would like nothing more than to have an excuse to do some bodily harm, especially to Shigehiro.

Shigehiro's job was to hold the silk cocoons under near-boiling water to soften them. For the first few weeks his hands were raw and sore, but eventually his skin grew accustomed to the hot water. That ruined the foreman's fun slightly; he always looked forward to wacking the boy whenever he took his hands out of the water too early due to the pain from the heat.

Tetsuya's job was to take the softened cocoons and slice them open and take the dead worm out before straightening the strands of silk and placing them in a ceramic bowl. The silk then got taken by one of the other workers to a machine on the other side of the room.

Tetsuya tried to focus all of his attention to the work in front of him, but he couldn't help but feel nervous for his friend. It wasn't uncommon for Shigehiro to mess up at least once a day, and the day wasn't even half over yet. He could hear Shigehiro breathing heavier than normal and knew that he was nervous as well.

A girl across the room (also a cocoon dunker) sneezed. She must have let go of the cocoons she had under the water, because they imediently floated to the top of the vat. She scrambled to get them back under the water. The foreman chuckled and started towards her. Tetsuya didn't watch him hit her. Instead, he raised his head to steal a glance at his friend. He was trembling slightly, but otherwise seemed to be okay. _Good,_ Tetsuya thought. The best thing to do was stay calm.

As he was turning back around to continue working, no longer as worried, his elbow hit the bowl of silk. He tried desperately to catch it, but it was too late. The bowl hit the hard dirt floor and shattered, bits of silk and ceramic scattering around his feet.

Eyes all around the room flew to him. He attempted to make an apologic face at Shigehiro, but the foreman was on him before he could.

"Look at what you did, you good-for-nothing scum!" he yelled, kicking at some of the silk on the ground. "It's ruined. Do you know how much that silk costs? Way more than your life is even worth." Tetsuya knew better than to say the silk would be easy enough to wash. The foreman spit at him before violently grabbing his thin arm and throwing him to the ground.

Tetsuya didn't expect the fall to hurt so much. He rarely got beat, and when he did, it wasn't nearly as violent as it was with the others. Because he was so fragile looking or because he bored the foreman, he didn't know. What he did know was that the foreman was angry, had been angry all day, and there was no way he was getting out of this beating. He shut his eyes tight and covered his face with his arms, preparing for the blow that was sure to come.

It never came. Tetsuya peeked his eyes open to see what stopped him. The foreman was standing above him, blinking dumbly, a small red mark on his fat cheek. Shigehiro was standing a few feet away with a handful of small rocks he'd picked up off the ground. "Don't touch him," he growled, raising one of the rocks threateningly.

Tetsuya could have cried with relief. He was safe! He internally promised to get bacon for Shigehiro for a year for taking the beating for him. The relief was short lived though, as he realised that the foreman was very, very angry. None of the workers had ever stood up to him before, and it seemed as though he was not going to handle it well.

"Don't you fucking dare throw rocks at me!" The foreman charged at Shigehiro. Tetsuya watched from his spot on the ground as the foreman hit Shigehiro so hard he fell back a few feet and knocked a vat over. "Shitty brat!" Another horrible flesh-hitting-flesh sound was heard as the foreman wacked him again.

Tetsuya winced as he heard a bone snap. Probably a rib, seeing as the foreman had taken to kicking Shigehiro in the torso. After another couple of kicks, the foreman stopped. He gave Shigehiro one last look of disgust before turning away and screaming for the others to continue working. Tetsuya quickly got up off the ground and ran over to his friend's side.

"Are you okay?" he asked, crouching down and laying a hand on Shigehiro's arm.

Shigehiro didn't reply. Instead, he attempted to sit up, but even that seemed to be too much, and Tetsuya heard him take a sharp intake of breath.

"Your ribs. Don't breath so deeply, you don't want a punctured lung," Tetsuya gently reminded him. Again, Shigehiro kept his face down and didn't reply, but he began breathing shallowly after that, so Tetsuya knew he heard him. He felt immensely guilty. Why did he have to break the stupid bowl? If he payed attention the bowl wouldn't have broke and his friend wouldn't be in so much pain.

"I'm just angry," Shigehiro finally said, punching the ground in frustration. "Why does he act like this? Someone really needs to do something." Tetsuya felt another stab of guilt as he saw tears drop onto the dusty floor.

"Is there something I can do to make you feel better?" he tried.

Shigehiro gently pushed Tetsuya away from him and managed to get to his feet. "Just get back to work. You're going to get in trouble." Tetsuya obeyed. He hurried over to the broken bowl and was scooping the sharp pieces up. All he wanted to do was finish working quickly so he could take Shigehiro home and bandage him up.

Shigehiro brought the room's attention back to him. "Why do you treat us like dirt?" he asked the foreman loudly.

_Please stop, Shigehiro-kun,_ Tetsuya pleaded in his mind. What was that fool doing? Did he want to get beat again?

The foreman turned and studied Shigehiro as if surprised someone would ask him that. "Because that's what you are. Filthy little pigs that I'm forced to pay everyday." He said it as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. "If anything, I'm the one who's unlucky; I have to pay nasty animals to do stuff they should be doing for free."

"Oh?" Shigehiro laughed harshly. Tetsuya was scared. He didn't want Shigehiro to be hurt anymore than he already was, but he couldn't find his voice to tell him to drop it and keep working. "The only animal I see here is you, you deluded bastard." He spit in the foreman's direction.

_Please just stop._

It took the foreman two strides to reach Shigehiro and pick him up by the scruff of his shirt.

_Please_.

It took four more steps for him to drag the kicking and scratching boy to the nearest machine and throw him headfirst into it. There was a terrified scream and a sickening grinding sound that will haunt Tetsuya for weeks. Then silence.

_No._

Tetsuya was shaking. He was holding the ceramic shards so tightly they were cutting into his flesh, but he took no notice. His wide eyes were fixed on the conveyor belt of the machine and the feet sticking out of the curtain that hid the inside. Tetsuya broke the trance the room seemed to be in by sprinting over to his friend. His vision was blurred. He didn't even realise he'd started to cry.

"Please stop," he sobbed, finding his voice at last, eyes still glued to Shigehiro's feet. "Please. After he gets up we'll leave and never bother you again."

The foreman's voice was closer than expected when he spoke. "Sorry, kid, but he ain't getting up."

The words didn't register. Tetsuya's mind was focused on the dark blood that was beginning to pool around Shigehiro's feet and leak off the side.

"See, this is what happens when you pigs fight back," the foreman's voice boomed to the frightened children. "The penalty is death."

Death? But Shigehiro... Tetsuya studied the huge quantity of blood that was now cascading down the side of the machine. His mind went blank and his body turned cold. He was still holding the sharp pieces of the bowl in his fists.

"Now that an example has been set, I hope you all-"

Tetsuya screamed as loud as he could, startling the foreman and the other children. He took advantage of the confusion to leap in the direction of the foreman and jump. He had no idea how he, being to small, was able to reach the throat of the giant foreman, but suddenly there was part of a bowl stuck into the foreman's fat neck and blood was spurting out like a fountain, soaking the pale boy. The foreman fell back onto the ground with a thud and Tetsuya took the oppurtunity to pull the shard of ceramic out of his throat only to stab it in again and again, making sure there was no possible way the foreman could recover. More blood splashed onto Tetsuya's face and hair.

A sudden triumphant feeling grew inside Tetsuya. He had beat the foreman! If only he had found the courage to act just a few minutes earlier, then Shigehiro wouldn't be... He felt a strong desire to do more unneccessary damage - maybe cut the man's eyes out, or sever all of his fingers - but he was brought back to reality by a young girl's scream.

"MURDER!"

Soon more than one child was screaming. It would only be a minute before one of the other foremen, or maybe the owner, heard and came to investigate. With a sickening realisation, Tetsuya looked at what he just did.

He had killed a man.

It didn't matter that the man had thrown a child into a deadly machine. There was plenty of children around, and it's not like anyone would expect less. They would just see a blood-soaked boy standing above a man who always raked in a lot of money. In their eyes, Tetsuya was the only one at fault and would be punished severely.

Without another thought, Tetsuya hurried to the factory door, yanked it open, and ran. He didn't know where he was running to. He had nowhere to go. There was no way his foster family would want him now. He knew that once word got out that he killed one of the village's most popular people, he would no longer be welcome.

So he just kept running.

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A/N: So. I hope that wasn't too rushed. I'm actually really nervous about posting this. Please tell me what you think! Also, I am not an expert at English, so do tell me if there is any horrible grammar mistakes, or if something doesn't make sense. I'm posting this without spell check (I'm on my tablet) so if you find an error, do send me a message and let me know! Thank you!


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